By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 20 July 2013:
Libya’s three main ethnic minorities have rejected the law passed by Congress on Tuesday setting up . . .[restrict]the 60-member commission to draft the new constitution.
The Supreme Amazigh Council, the Supreme Tuareg Council and the Tebu National Assembly have demanded that their communities be given more than the two seats reserved for each of them in the elections to the Commission under Article 5 of the law.
“The Congress members of Amazigh, Touareg and Tabu do not agree on the Article 5 of the constitutional drafting committee election law,” Obari Congressman Hussain Al-Ansari, a Tuareg, told the Libya Herald.
Two seats each was insufficient as far as the communities were concerned, he said. “It does not guarantee their participation in drafting of the constitution”.
The three organisations say the minorities will start a campaign of civil disobedience unless Congress amends the law by next Tuesday, 23 July, and gives them more seats. This would include a boycott of the elections and blockades of oil fields and public utilities.
Congress members who are Amazigh, Tuareg and Tebu also say they will suspend their membership of the legislature until acceptable changes are made.
There has been no response so far to the threats. However, action by various groups, including Tebus, blockading oil fields in past weeks has been highly damaging. Earlier this month, the chairman of Congress’ Energy Committee, Naji Al-Mukhtar, said that Libya was losing $50 million a day because of industrial action at oil sites.
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